Contents
Alma Allred & Bruce R McConkie: Elohim & Jehovah Aren’t Such Rigid Titles. 1
Is the Jesus of Mormonism the Jesus of the Bible? Alma Allred Debate Notes. 2
Alma Allred Debate Notes: What is Truth?. 5
Is the LDS Church True? Alma Allred & James White Debate Highlights. 9
Alma Allred: The Non-Private Information Age & Many New Worldwide Converts to the Church Necessitate Simple Church Teachings
When you think that we have hundreds of thousands of new converts being baptized every year, if the brethren were to propound doctrine like BRM, or BY, they’d be overwhelmed. The information age has a negative in that you can’t talk privately to a group of saints without it being broadcast on the internet; and it is a principle of the gospel not to throw pearls before swine. I don’t think the reduced diet of meat for the saints is necessarily the problem that the faithful saints can’t handle it as much as it becomes too readily accessible to the enemies of Church—who have often destroyed the testimony of new converts. It’s a two-edged sword too.
We have to be careful not to judge the members for watered down teachings when it may be the Lord trying to protect new converts, or the Lord not wanting anti-Mormons being able to sabotage the Church by their taking the meat to the internet.
The general membership of the Church gets revelation as quickly as they’re able to receive it.
Alma Allred & Bruce R McConkie: Elohim & Jehovah Aren’t Such Rigid Titles
Alma Allred:
“Linguistically, and biblically, neither from the Hebrew, nor the Greek can you separate Elohim from Jehovah. Our current use of the terms is primarily for convenience and is something “we” that is, the leaders of this dispensation have done—we have designated Elohim, as the Father and Jehovah as the Son, but in the New Testament, and Book of Mormon, Jehovah is referred to as the Father. It’s just too easy to get wrapped around the axel by rigidly interpreting the terms Elohim and Jehovah as if they always refer to the Father and the Son as personal names.”
Bruce R McConkie:
“Peter did precisely the same thing in principle. He applied one of Christ’s chief titles to the Father: “The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers,” who is in fact the Lord Jehovah, “hath glorified his Son Jesus,” Peter says, thus applying the name of the Son to the Father. (Acts 3:13.) How truly they are one! The name of the one is the name of the other. The words of the one are the words of the other.” (Bruce R. McConkie, The Promised Messiah, p.122)
Alma Allred continues:
“Jesus did the same thing in quoting Isaiah—a passage cited at least 4 times in the BoM. It says in Isaiah, “The LORD hath made bare his holy arm…” and Jesus changed it to “The Father had made bare his holy arm.” There are also a couple of passages in the Old Testament, saying, “Jehovah, he is Elohim.” We have to be careful not to impose our current usage into the past onto a culture that didn’t use names the same way we do. There are just too many problems when you have divine investiture of authority with Jesus speaking as if he were the Father to try to make it all fit neatly into our 21st century perceptions.”
Is the Jesus of Mormonism the Jesus of the Bible? Alma Allred Debate Notes
Mormonism is significantly different than evangelical Christianity. But our faith of Christ as savior of the world, and him resurrected, are the same.
These days we don’t talk about plurality of God’s much but it’s still there in our scripture, and it’s not off the table for discussion in Alma’s institute class.
Anciently Hebrews and Christians were not monotheist. Margaret barker “the great angel: the study of Israel’s second God”
Ancient Hebrews believed something compatible with Mormonism.
The LDS Church has dialed down the rhetoric as it is growing so much; we need to give milk not meat.
In the 1960s by David McKay the Church went more global, more broad.
Elohim and Jehovah – those terms are interchangeable. It’s an artificial distinction of convenience. Since 1914 the church designated that they speak of Elohim as Father, and Jehovah as Son.
Our view of scripture is different than other religions, we are ok with changing scripture when a prophet is inspired to.
When scripture speaks of being saved it’s generally referring to exaltation. Saved means being exalted in the celestial kingdom. So those who reject the church won’t be saved, aka won’t be exalted. They are living in sin. They will inherit one of the lower kingdoms of glory.
Note: ‘not being saved’ doesn’t mean they’ll be burning in forever torment, it means their privileges will be far less, and the regret will be severe. And for the wicked, yes it does mean burning in hell. But there’s also a chance for them to repent in the spirit world after death for cases where they were deceived in life.
LDS are under covenant to accept the standard works as doctrine, they’re not required to believe the extra canonical stuff like the King Follet discourse.
The King Follett discourse is not entirely accurate; there are four different versions of it, and the brethren have not chosen to canonize it. Alma does believe teachings from the King Follet sermon, but church member’s aren’t required to as it is not in the canon. This doesn’t mean exaltation to godhood isn’t church doctrine, it certainly is, it is repeatedly taught in canonized scriptures.
Note – James White often says that the most quoted Joseph Smith teachings are the King Follet sermon. That’s far from true. Perhaps among anti-Mormon propagandists that’s true. But in the church, the Doctrine & Covenants, which are 95% all from Joseph Smith, are all quoted very frequently. So is the Book of Mormon, another volume from Joseph Smith.
There are many concepts which are true which are not part of our canon.
Our official church doctrine is that which can be easily demonstrated by the standard works, the teachings of the temple, and the teachings of Joseph Smith. In his institute classes he does explore ideas which are reasoned from scripture, he tell them to beware, that such may not be true, that they have to decide what of what he teaches is true.
Harold B Lee taught that only the president of the church can put forth new doctrine which is agreed upon by the 12 and sustained by the church, and when someone says something not with all of these checked off which is not demonstratable by scripture, it is his opinion only.
The interpretation of the standard works is provided by the living prophets; if that interpretation is consistent with the standard works it is accepted.
Going on to make your own planet is not in the standard works, it is merely a logical extension of things that are in the standard works. It is in our standard works that a person can become a god.
Our scriptures never postulate a time when God was not God. The King Follet discourse does, but it is not canonized scripture. And nothing in our scripture ever says that Jesus Christ was not always God. But it is not consistent with reality to believe that the Son of God has always been a God. It is not reasonable or logical to call someone a son unless there is a time when he became the son.
Jesus is God from everlasting to everlasting, and you understand this with a frame of reference: as far as you can see one way to as far as you can see the other way, from eternity to all eternity.
To consider something before Jesus was a God would be outside of our understanding.
There are as many perspectives of who Christ is as there are people.
It would be surprising to sit down with two Evangelical Christians and have them give the same understanding of the trinity.
When it says that Christ created all things there is a limit to that. There are many places in scripture where “all” has a limited meaning.
Mormonism would not be any different if we did not have the Bible. This shows that what we believe is consistent.
The Bible is not the foundation for our doctrine.
Our scriptures are the foundation of our doctrine, but if you take the Bible out of that, our doctrine would not change.
Often time BYU students are not serious about their religion.
You don’t have to know a lot about God to join the church – we see at the day of Pentecost those people knew hardly anything and they were converted and joined the church.
Mosiah 15 says that as a result of his conception, Jesus became the father and the son.
In Joseph Smith’s first vision he saw two distinct individuals but he did not describe it that way every time.
Our scriptures say that God the Father with a body is the father of Jesus, but they also still say after the conception that Mary is a virgin. This is a mystery but the LDS doctrine is that God the Father is the father of Jesus in the flesh.
James Tallmadge talks about the conception of Jesus as fulfillment of natural law but expression of that law in a higher way that we do not understand.
Note – I’m fine with the simpler natural explanation advocated by Brigham Young, Bruce McConkie, Joseph Fielding Smith, etc.
The Journal of Discourses has never been published by the LDS Church.
Bruce R McConkie wrote a scathing letter to someone about a dogmatic view of Brigham’s teachings; this letter got out to the public and anti-Mormons passed it around; Eldon Watson who was appointed to help people resolve doctrinal issues contacted McConkie and said this letter is problematic, and McConkie said ‘tell anyone that asks about it that I was wrong in that letter’.
McConkie changed things in his book “Mormon Doctrine” as he came to understand things differently.
We don’t believe that the opinions of a leader can never change.
We aren’t responsible as a church for the opinion of some random missionary; you can’t pin us down to what someone somewhere said sometime.
Brigham said it is impossible for us weak groveling people to receive a perfect revelation from the Almighty, and that the revelations we have are as good as we can handle. He did not believe that his perception of doctrine was perfect.
Brigham lost his home seven different times often due to sectarian ministers, yes he was upset about those churches sometimes. Brigham did rebuke the sectarian notions of God and sin and man etc. which were false.
D&C 1:30 makes a clear statement about the Trinity – it doesn’t bash on other views of the Trinity, it just sets out the clear truth. Our job as Mormons is to not bash on other people’s views, but to declare the truth and invite them to come and join to it, bringing whatever truth they have.
Note – We respect the agency of others to accept or reject truths which are presented to them. The burden of acceptance is theirs, all we do is present the information in a nice way.
The atonement occurred twice: once In The Garden of Gethsemane and again on the cross. He paid for spiritual death and physical death, and that occurred in two places. Alma believes that Christ took care of our sins first in Gethsemane, and then for the fall of Adam and the death on the cross. And both of those were infinite in their severity. This is why we have the bread and the water, a binary nature to the sacrament.
In the New Testament we read that Christ was in agony In The Garden of Gethsemane. He bled from every pore there.
The Bible doesn’t flush this out. There are many things we believe in that are not in the bible which are beyond what the Bible says.
Lehi in the Book of Mormon talks to Jacob and says “I know that you are redeemed because of the righteousness of your redeemer” thus we see that we do not add to the sacrifice of Christ. We are required to rely on the mercy of Christ.
It is correct that exaltation requires our compliance.
Christ is the author of eternal salvation to them that obey him says the New Testament in Hebrews 5:9.
It isn’t believers who are saved, it is obedient believers.
The entire purpose of Jesus Christ atoning was the eternal life and exaltation of man, to bring us to the same position that he is in. Peter said the Lord will make us partakers of his divine nature.
D&C 38 Jesus was God before the world was created
Dealing with hypotheticals like “what if the prophet said this how would you react”, that is a waste of time; there are many things that are clearly not going to happen in the church.
Note – It is written that a dividing will happen, a cleansing. Many today are brazenly advocating acceptance of sins which are abominable to the Lord, and the church will be cleansed of these hard hearted members. God will not be mocked. The Church will remain, and the wicked will be removed from it.
The concepts taught in the King Follet discourse could also apply to Christ – that God Christ was once a man. But the typical interpretation of the King Follett sermon is that Heavenly Father was once a man on an earth like us.
We don’t know a lot about the other gods’ existence, we know about the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost. They are not equal. Christ said “my father is greater than I.” The Father supersedes the Son. If a person enters into exaltation they are always subject to their father and their God and to Christ.
Christ took a new role for us because of His atonement.
Alma Allred Debate Notes: What is Truth?
Simple logic tells you certain things are false – for example, evolution theory tells you that zebras develop stripes to prevent a fly, and rattlesnakes develop rattles to prevent being stepped on; but those were advantageous before they developed them, and how could they decide to develop DNA to have those enhancements? Yet evolution theory claims that evolving does not happen in any direction it just happens randomly – and all of that is simply not logical, and it is not true.
Note – I love this about Alma Allred. He has sided with the Christian world (and against large factions in the LDS Church) in confessing that evolution theory is bogus propaganda.
Truth can be available to anyone by revelation, not just a certain religion. In the Bible, James promised if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God.
Joseph Smith said let people bring what truth they have and come join with us.
Revelation is objective, but it does not come to man in mortality in its completeness. God speaks to us according to our limitations based on our ability to understand.
We don’t believe in a perfect Book of Mormon, we don’t believe in a perfect Bible, we do not believe we have perfect doctrine.
The canonized revelations contain objective truth. We have a canon of scripture and the church in the future will have those same doctrines. (We don’t play the “what if you church does ___ in the future” game, we don’t have to.) In society people will apostatize and lose the faith of their fathers, but this will not change the foundational doctrine of the church. The church itself will not apostatize. Where do you draw the line? Following the living prophet. We have confidence he will not leave the church into apostasy.
The church will never embrace gay marriage – we have the family proclamation which is very direct. It is very insistent that marriage is between a man and a woman and that children are best reared in that environment.
The church is not going to change on this you can take that to the bank.
The 1992 marriage in the temple manual was very clear about the doctrine of exaltation, but the new version of the manual is not so clear. This is unfortunate, but perhaps for the best.
We see the church grows more than 100,000 a year, and exaltation is still in the scripture and it’s still taught in institute classes, but it’s not the focus of teaching in the church right now.
We are promised that if we are faithful we will have every blessing that the Savior has, and the Savior has every blessing that the Father has.
The Desert Book store doctrinal section is now tiny compared to what it used to be. Many people in the Church don’t even know who Bruce McConkie is anymore. Unfortunately many members are dismissive of Elder McConkie, they need to repent. (Deseret Book was selling Michelle Obama’s book. Fatal mistake, trading McConkie for Michelle!)
Alma reports that the church is aware that among the youth there is a diminishing capacity to understand doctrine.
Cell phones and instant gratification of the internet have limited people’s ability to study perceive and ponder.
The church emphasis now is that children learn the doctrine at home at the feet of their parents.
A seminary class cannot compete with the home dinner table, there are all kinds of levels of students in the class and the teacher has to work with the lowest common denominator. For our doctrinally advanced youth, seminary classes can be boring.
Recently a college football player said he cannot hold meetings for longer than 50 minutes because his players cannot leave their phones alone for longer than that without becoming stressed.
CNN’s Studies have shown you should not make a statement that you expect to be remembered by your audience that lasts more than 15 seconds. You need to change speakers to keep the attention of the average CNN viewer. But truth cannot be enunciated in 15 seconds, you cannot have meaningful depth with that.
The University of Utah president recently put up posters all over campus saying “zero tolerance for intolerance.” This means ‘if you do not agree with the LGBT agenda, we do not have tolerance for you.’ Freedom of speech has been bastardized. Their inclusivity has a caveat that it only applies to include you as long as you agree with them. Now the greatest sin is offending someone.
Unfortunately, members and missionaries these days are very shy about the doctrine of the one true church and necessary priesthood authority for ordinances. The fact remains that those who reject the Church and its ordinances will not be saved in the celestial kingdom, and they are who God has classed as ‘the wicked.’
President Boyd K Packer said we cannot surrender the claim that this is the only true church, meaning the only authorized priesthood. And priesthood is essential for the eternal life and immortality of man.
The reorganized Church no longer sees their church as the only true church. They are basically liberal Protestants. They also believe the Nicene Trinity. They treat the Book of Mormon as more guidelines than truth, spiritualized and without a historical reality. They explain the first vision as merely Joseph Smith having a marvelous experience that changed him, they don’t present or teach or believe any detail other than that.
In the reorganized Church they tried to get rid of everything taught in the Nauvoo.
There’s a saying among the reorganized church that Mormonism is Joseph Smith’s church, and the reorganized church is Emma Smith’s church.
They spiritualize everything Joseph Smith taught in the Nauvoo period, getting rid of it. They got rid of several D&C sections and the Pearl of Great Price.
Some people want to spiritualize the Book of Mormon and say it was not a true account but the three witnesses handled and hefted the actual book, you can’t spiritualize that. If Nephi did not exist, the moral of the story could be gotten from anywhere else, it would make the Book of Mormon unimportant.
The primary purpose of the Book of Mormon is not to teach (every) doctrine (in detail), its main purpose is to convert people to Christ. (The fullness of the gospel of how to be saved is in there, but it doesn’t claim to teach every truth there is.)
Starting with President David O. McKay there has been a shift in the church – there is less in your face teaching. This transition took place when the church went more global. President Hinckley was very much oriented to friendly conversation. Leaders of the church realize that we can have more dialogue when we are gentle about feelings of others. The D&C says do not rail against any church. But it also says have debates/discussion etc. Debates gets people thinking but they do not do a good job at establishing truth, there are better ways.
In the church, from the time of Joseph Smith onward, you are not required to believe anything, your behavior is the important part. There have been notable heretics over the years that people have wanted to excommunicate for disbelief, but church leaders have said it’s not their belief, it’s their behavior that would result in communication. If they aren’t promoting heretical doctrines in the church then it’s not really a problem what they believe. The main thing we deal with is the behavior and we hope their belief will change. In the meantime they can stay in the church. The person who believes correctly will by instinct follow the teachings of the gospel. People can apostatize without being kicked out of the church so long as they are not trying to get others around them to apostatize.
Note – I am aware of a few cases of excommunication for belief, but Alma’s point here is right – behaviors are the key to faithfulness. Joseph Smith said he never heard of someone being damned for believing too much. And Jesus said he draws the line in the sand based on how we treated others (Matt. 25). This doesn’t mean go around believing whatever you wish – ultimately beliefs do trickle into behaviors, that’s what makes them so important/dangerous.
In the 1980s people in the church essentially all believed the same thing. But today there are wide differences of belief in the church.
The triune God is not of the Bible, it is of Nicene Christianity, and it is not defensible.
The god of Mormonism is the god of the Bible.
Joseph Smith said there will be pretenders and people who try to divide the church, but if you follow these two facts you will always be with the true church – 1st be with the majority of the saints and 2nd be with the history/records of the church.
In that statement records of the church refers to priesthood ordinations and baptisms. All of those records left Nauvoo with Brigham Young.
Those records will never be controlled by people who don’t believe in the Book of Mormon.
We want others to experience the revelatory truth that Joseph Smith was called by God. That he was a true prophet of the living God and that the doctrines which he taught are actually doctrine from God. Without that experience we do not expect people to believe. People can ask God to reveal this truth and he will reveal it to them. You cannot follow Jesus unless you accept those leaders that he has called; this is why it is important to have revelation that Joseph Smith was a leader that Jesus called. Jesus said concerning his appointed messengers, “He that receiveth you receiveth me.” By understanding and accepting the mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith you will have a greater understanding of the Savior of the world.
We would consider people who are not in the church yet who preach of Christ be Christians. We say that they do good for their congregations, it is not all or nothing. Christian is not a term of fellowship it is a term of theology. If you claim to follow Jesus Christ, you can claim the term Christian.
When the church first began and baptism for the dead was announced there were two valid witnesses present at the baptism down by the river, it was a woman and the horse she was sitting on.
Can women have priestly authority? Women serve in the relief society and in the temple. They minister to the sick and afflicted. In some hearings Joseph F. Smith was asked if these are priesthood duties which the women do, he said absolutely.
If the law of the land approved of polygamy you would still be excommunicated for doing it, in fact in many parts of Africa it is legal to have polygamist wives, yet members in Africa are still excommunicated for it. It is because the president of the church controls the keys of the sealing power. It would not be surprising if 30 years from now marriage disappears as a social institution entirely. It’s happening right now in Europe. It may be down the line that if women want to be married at all they have to pick a man who is already married, but for that to be valid and sanctioned the church president would have to authorize it.
Is the LDS Church True? Alma Allred & James White Debate Highlights
Any person who attains unto any kingdom of glory, it is by Christ.
Agents of the kingdom of God must be authorized to represent the kingdom, just as any other Kingdom has authorized administrators. [Note: We believe in God’s Kingdom more literally than most.]
A copy of the Bible does not give anyone authority to grant citizenship in the kingdom of God, just like how a random person couldn’t go open an embassy in a foreign land and claim to give citizenship to people there. [Note: And a random person with a copy of the US Constitution doesn’t make him judge in a court of law.]
God is the ruler of his kingdom. He has called and ordained witnesses to administer the kingdom.
Joseph Smith by the time of his death at age 38 had built multiple cities, multiple temples, and produced 800 pages of what is accepted as scripture by many.
God does not establish spiritual truths by debates, but debates are still helpful in giving an answer for why you believe.
Paul did not have much success when he disputed in the synagogues, marketplaces, etc.
In the 1980s the youth knew the doctrine of the church well. Now the adults don’t even know the doctrine of the church.
In the past the concern was that when people talked about and debated religion there was some animosity that got involved. But today the concern is that conversations & debates about religion aren’t happening at all!
Often members today are shy about proclaiming the doctrine of “the one true church.”
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Anthropomorphic God:
No one in mortality can have a completely correct perspective of God.
Typical trinitarians cannot obtain eternal life as they do not understand the nature of God.
Joseph Smith taught we should take the Bible literally, that when God was walking in the garden of Eden, he really was there walking; that God has a body.
God confronted Joshua with a sword in his hand. God actually has a hand.
In Revelation chapter 9 and angel stops someone from worshiping him because he is not God. But we see that Joshua falls down on his face to worship the man who is the captain of the Lord’s host, who is in fact God, and if that messenger was not God, the messenger would have stopped Joshua from worshiping him like the messenger did in the book of Revelation.
The person tells Joshua to remove his shoes as he’s on Holy ground, just like God told Moses.
A retiring professor of Hebrew, James L. Kugel, wrote a book called “The God of Old” where he demonstrates that the ancient prophets worshiped a corporal God. He said it was in the Middle Ages that the change of perspective of Judaism took place to say that God does not have a body. The Jews became embarrassed that their God was not like the Christian God, so they got rid of references to an anthropomorphic God. Jews essentially ended up with the same God as the Nicene Christian.
He said the idea that ‘God is invisible is because he has no body’ is an invention of philosophers and theologians. He points out that many of the original scriptures speak of God himself with a body appearing, but that a lot of these accounts were changed to make it look like they were angels appearing, not God.
Jacob wrestles with a man, and the commentators call him an angel, but Jacob calls the place “peniel” meaning the face of God. He says “I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved.” It was believed that when God made Adam in his own image, he made Adam about the same size and shape as himself.
They traded the living God for the modern God.
In the Bible we read that people were cursed for worshiping something that did not see or hear or walk.
Another passage says that cursed people would worship a God that cannot see eat or smell.
Therefore they believed in a God that heard, smelled, walked, etc.
You don’t have to be a Mormon to believe in the anthropomorphic God, all you have to do is take the Bible literally. The only thing that promotes god without a body is Christian philosophies.
If God has emotions he must exist in time, because his emotions can change, and if he exists in time he must also exist in space.
Note: The verse that says time will be no longer is about Satan’s time being over; Satan’s time to tempt and rule will be over.
Joseph Smith believed what the ancients believed about the anthropomorphic God.
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You can use the scientific method to determine the truth of Mormonism. Have a hypothesis, test it, then publish the results. Examine the Book of Mormon, ask if it is true, and by the Holy Ghost you can KNOW that it is. There are thousands of missionaries who have done this experiment and found the same result of the book being true. The best way to determine if Mormonism is true is by examining whether Joseph Smith was a true prophet. The way to determine who is a true prophet, as Jesus said, is by their fruit. The fruit of Joseph Smith is the Book of Mormon. Most people think they can analyze spiritual truth by material things like grammar, editorial changes, physical evidence, etc., but in this they have missed the point. The Bible says compare spiritual things with spiritual. We don’t care about changes made to the Book of Mormon. We don’t care about the physical evidences. We care about what the book teaches, and what it teaches is good. It has a profound impact on a person to increase their faith in Christ. It inspires us to be grateful to God and to love others.
[Note: There simply isn’t time in life to analyze every aspect. We have to act in faith. We have to be aware that there are evil people who will lie and hold up false evidences, poor research, heresay claims and so forth to stop the work of God. So don’t bother basing your faith on claims of people on either side, just analyze the plain claims simply, and go to God about it.]
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The Hebrew translation of break (parar) the commandments is trample underfoot, and we see this phrase in the Book of Mormon repeatedly, it speaks of trampling the commandments underfoot, it doesn’t speak of “breaking” them.
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Jeremiah 10 speaks of God’s (plural) who made all things.
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Early church leaders did not make the distinction between Jehovah and Elohim, that was a later distinction made so that people could be on the same page when they are talking about them.
Bible passages about Elohim and Jehovah could be referring to the father or the son or the Holy Ghost.
Joseph Smith never made the distinction between Jehovah and Elohim.
The distinction between Jehovah and Elohim isn’t a development in the understanding of God, it is a distinction for convenience in discussion.
There are very few references in the Book of Mormon to God the Father, and most of them are when Jesus is talking about His Father.
The Book of Mormon teaches that Jesus Christ is the creator of all things from the beginning.
In Mormon theology there was more than one creation, there was a spiritual creation. Jesus Christ did not create our spirits, our Father in Heaven created our spirits. There was a premortal creation of the Earth that was done by Jehovah and Michael. At the fall there were dramatic creation changes and Joseph Smith spoke of the orbit of the earth changing at that time. Jesus Christ stepped in at the fall and created all things mortally in a physical mortal sphere.
There will be a new Heaven and a new Earth and Jesus will bring that about. In D&C 29 Jesus says the beginning of his work was the creation of man, and the end of his work is the exaltation of man.
The church started out very small, it was not big enough for anything but elders. As the church grew there came a need for the office of high priest, Bishop’s Stake presidents, etc.
Hebrews talks about a kingdom of priests, a royal priesthood, so it’s not just one high priest Jesus.
The Greek word aparabotom does not mean without a successor, it means it does not change from person to person. This we see from a superior lexicon, Gingrich, not Clair’s.
Note – here I think Alma is pointing out that God will always have his power but that also God can have Fathers and sons from whom he gets the power and to whom he gives power without ever losing it.
Joseph dictated the translation of the papyrus, he didn’t translate it by lexicons.
They were very familiar with the text of the book of Abraham long before the papyrus arrived.
The Protestant keeps claiming that anyone who thinks Father Son and Holy Ghost are separate is ignorant.
The Book of Mormon does not claim to be the book with all the doctrine, in fact it specifically says that there will be more books with more doctrine, but the Book of Mormon does have teachings that will bring us closer to God. It is correct but it is not complete.
Spirits are eternal, they are not created.
There is a progression of Gods.
The 1828 Webster’s dictionary entry for intelligence is spirit.
Before we were spirits there was matter called intelligence. Our existence as individuals took place at our spirit birth.
The gospel was never lost; that is the message of Jesus Christ, that he died and was risen on the third day. But the apostasy was the loss of authority. A husband and wife can disagree on some things, that doesn’t mean there is apostasy in their marriage. The worldwide apostasy probably occurred somewhere around 300 ad around the time that the Book of Mormon closes.
Mormons in the 1980s were much more interested in objective truth, now it’s hard to get them to talk.
Young Mormons who are ambivalent to the authority of Brigham Young need a whipping! (joke)
The church never ex-communicated people just for being gay, it excommunicates them when they act on that inclination.
If a person is tempted toward gay activity but they are celibate and keep the laws of the church, they can have a temple recommend. It’s the same for men who are attempted to commit adultery but they don’t do it; they get to keep their recommends (and the associated blessings).
As long as someone commits to living within the bounds of behavior that the church specifies, they can qualify for blessings, because what matters is actions.
Note – clearly they should have a humble attitude too, not glorifying their tendencies toward gayness, but they should recognize that as a temptation to sin, as an evil inclination. One of the most perplexing issues with the gay movement is that they don’t just want to be allowed to sin, they want to redefine that behavior as acceptable (not sinful). Clearly someone who celebrates sin would not qualify for Gods blessings, even if they were celibate in their actions.
Also note that just because someone has a temple recommend from church authorities and is in all appearances worthy doesn’t guarantee them a place in heaven, as the intentions of the heart are often hidden to man, but never are hidden to God. The Lord makes specific mention of his anger against those who pretend to be worthy in His house but are not. So clearly here Alma isn’t claiming that behaviors matter and beliefs don’t, Alma is saying that so far as judges in Israel are concerned, we judge based on the behaviors, and if someone claims to have chaste behaviors, we can, so far as we are concerned, grant them a recommend. Then its between them and God. And if someone is known for inciting rebellion against Gods laws (very different than a few variant quiet personal opinions), that person can be excommunicated.
Highlights from the Alma Allred & Jason Wallace Presbyterian Pastor Debate Mormonism, a 13 Part Series: Topics: Fallen Man, Agency, Predestination (pt.3), Polygamy (pt.4), Joseph Smith, Exaltation, Salvation, Cannon, Scripture (pt.5), Temples (pt.6), Hell (pt.7,8), Prophets, Prophecy (pt.9), Anthropomorphic Nature of God (pt.10), Adam God Falsehood (pt.9, 12), Blood Atonement (pt.13), etc.
As is typical of my notes, these aren’t meant to represent every idea covered in the debates, but are just a few fascinating points that stuck out to me. Be sure to review the full lectures for a much better covering of these and related topics.
Part 1: On Jesus, Scripture, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_R6jtxCUog&pp=ygUZYW5jaWVudCBwYXRocyBhbG1hIGFsbHJlZA%3D%3D
Bruce R McConkie was a great theologian, 99% of what he said was great, but he overreached a few times.
What is not in our Canon of scriptures is not official Mormon doctrine.
D&C 132 shows that plural marriage is an eternal principle, but it’s practiced only when God says.
We are unsure of how the conception of Jesus happened and scripture still refers to Mary as a virgin after the conception. James Tallmadge calls it a manifestation of a higher law.
Note – I don’t think we need to twist and stretch about this, it can be plain and simple, and the same way we know of, just as Brigham Young, Bruce McConkie, Joseph Fielding Smith, and several other prophets have taught. But at minimum, we don’t have to insist either way, and that can be helpful when we are dealing with people of other faiths. You can be in good standing in the church and believe in the literal conception, or the conception being literal and happening by a more mysterious way. But all agree that Jesus is literally the Son of God, not the son of Joseph. Alma in this debate is saying that when McConkie didn’t need to come out and say what he did about this topic, and that perhaps we don’t really know. As for me, in my experience those who downplay the simple natural conception of Jesus by God and Mary also are quick to deny the role of plural marriage, and many other plain and precious truths, including the nature of God Himself. But I too will admit a lack of absolute certainty on this point.
Jesus is the one who said let there be light. He is the creator, he is Jehovah of the Old Testament.
Kolob is next to where God is; this places God in time and space. Also D&C 130 affirms God has a body of flesh and bone.
Part 2: On Godhood, Jesus, the Beginning, Other Worlds
The Ancient Paths – 2nd Interview with Alma Allred, LDS Institute Instructor – YouTube
Alma believes the King Follet lecture about becoming Gods and the Lorenzo Snow couplet (that “as God is Man may become, and as man is God once was), but this is not official doctrine or it would be canonized in our scripture.
Our scriptures do not tell us about a time before when Jesus was God.
D&C says we do not yet know if there are limits to Jesus’s creation.
The book of Moses says the creation account is about this world. Moses asked to know about other worlds and God said no.
Note – there are many evidences, and it is widely supported in the church, that God has made several galaxies, and that Christ is the Lord and Savior of this galaxy.
Part 3: On the fallen nature of man, predestination, agency, etc.
(730) The Ancient Paths – 3rd Interview with Alma Allred, LDS Institute Instructor – YouTube
God does require obedience but ultimately exaltation is a gift.
Joseph Smith said God is much more opposed to sin and ready to punish us for sin than we can imagine.
The scriptures (Bible and the Book of Mormon) affirm there is an eternal hell; missionaries don’t emphasize this because they’re trying to preach the good news, but there’s also bad news for unrepentant sinners.
It’s true this world is fallen and evil.
But eventually God does destroy both death and hell, except for the sons of perdition.
Some think we serve our Bishop, we don’t.
Alma recommends the book by Richard Draper, The Opening of the 7 Seals.
Alma says “Jesus Christ is a god in the flesh and he is an exalted man.”
Protestants don’t allow for human agency.
Luke typifies two people Elizabeth and Zacharias who were righteous before God walking in obedience to all the commandments. So we can’t be too gung-ho about saying everyone is an abject evil sinner.
The Latter-day Saint God is the trinity in the sense of Father Son and Holy Ghost working together.
Don’t say free agency. Agency always has strings attached to how you use it.
Man’s ability to make decisions is more important than God dictating everything.
A tsunami may not be God doing that, it may be just the nature of this fallen world.
Isaiah tells a man he will die, the man repented and God tells Isaiah to tell the man he gets 15 more years. Its not Isaiah getting a prophecy wrong, it’s the way people react to the prophecy that has the power to change the outcome. That’s the whole point, we want people to repent when warned.
Not a sparrow falls without God’s notice. Not that it’s God’s will, but he does know of it.
God does know the future. He knows the ultimate outcomes, etc.
Alma says for all we know based on just canonized scripture, the council of God’s spoken of in Abraham is just the Father Son and Holy Ghost. Though it’s been taught to mean more (and most members believe it is in fact more, but you don’t have to believe that to be a member).
The Joseph Smith translation clarifies that God did not harden Pharaoh’s heart, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. This respects agency, and respects God’s goodwill toward men.
In 2nd Samuel the last chapter, God caused somebody to do something and then God punished them for doing it. The Joseph Smith Translation has that differently so it doesn’t fly in the face of justice, that the man chose to do a bad thing and was justly punished because it was his choice to do it.
If you claim God is responsible for everything he is responsible for all evil. That is not our doctrine in the church. God does not cause evil to come about just so he can punish people.
People can become righteous.
We’re not all spiritually dead, otherwise God would not call us, we would not be able to respond to a call.
The LDS position is that man is an enemy to God UNLESS he yields to the Holy Spirit, and at that point he is no longer an enemy to God.
People have different abilities to respond to God’s calling this life because of how they exercised their agency in the premortal life.
There’s a Bible passage where God sends an evil spirit between two people, the Joseph Smith translation changes that (God doesn’t send evil spirits).
(Note- God certainly does curse people though.)
We see more information on how God does things in the restored Church.
At the walls of Jericho God didn’t just make the walls fall, he gave people instructions and the walls fell once the people followed those instructions in faith. This shows we must act in faith to gain Gods blessings.
Sarah saw the prophecy of her posterity wasn’t working out in the way she thought it would, so it was a good work for her to bring in Hagar to help the prophecy happen. This is an act of faith.
Tithing settlement is not policing someone’s conscience; it is not a required thing to be a member. Tithing is a free will offering.
Note – a person does need to commit to paying tithing to join the Church, and if they cease paying tithing they are no longer in good standing in the Church, and cannot have a temple recommend. But it is true that tithing settlement is not required.
The Book of Mormon and the bible teach that we must all be born again; it is an essential rebirth by baptism in water and reception of the Holy Spirit, that is part of the process of being born again.
It’s not just God coming for us – we see Cornelius was out looking for God.
Part 4 Polygamy
https://youtu.be/pR-htWB8EI0
There may be more similarities between a protestant church and the LDS church than the LDS church and fundamentalist LDS.
Only 3 percent of LDS lived polygamy. A man had to be called to it. But fundamentalist groups, they’re polygamy groups, they all do it.
Monogamy is the rule in the Old and New Testament and the modern church. Polygamy is the exception.
According to Emma’s son, Emma said Joseph didn’t do polygamy. But we don’t have record of Emma saying that firsthand.
Note: We have many records of her being aware of polygamy in the Church and practiced by Joseph, she usually was against it.
We can’t tell which of the women sealed to Joseph were for marriage and which were just stealing into family.
The cases where Joseph was sealed to a woman who was already married, Alma says those would have been family sealings, not marriage sealings. Most of the cases of Joseph being sealed to married woman were when that woman’s husband was not a member of the church.
Note: These sealings were for eternity, so women whose husbands weren’t in the church wanted to secure those eternal blessings without ruining their families. This isn’t done today.
John Bennett confessed in public trial that Joseph never taught him anything of unvirtuous behavior.
Marriages which are not performed by the priesthood end at death.
Brigham said that those who were called to polygamy were required to do so for exaltation.
Note – see the aspect of obedience.
Plenty of men who are not polygamists have hope of exaltation.
D&C 132 on polygamy also speaks of a man marrying a woman (singular) for exaltation, that is monogamy.
One man entered a plural marriage after the church said to stop doing that and got an infection and died shortly thereafter. He said he felt it was the judgment of God for going against the council of the church.
Some covenants are for the time being, like circumcision, which is now done away. So it was plural marriage.
The united voice of the church is against polygamy.
Note – would this change of the laws of the land changed? The voice of the church might speak differently, but I doubt it with today’s political climate and culture. At this point frankly it’s odd that the law outlaws polygamy, but for Church members the policy remains the same: do whatever God (through His prophet) calls you to do.
Brigham Young had about 20 wives but was sealed to many more.
(Note – perhaps as family, not necessarily wives.)
WW Phelps was excommunicated for taking unauthorized wives.
The most reasonable purpose of plural marriage is to make more children, and that is what happened with plural marriage in the church.
It is a very well established concept in the church that there is only one man on the earth who can give people authority to perform plural marriages. Joseph Smith even told his brother Hyrum that he could not authorize plural marriages without his permission.
Fundamentalist LDS have a complete disregard for authority.
Max Anderson’s book “Polygamy: Fiction or Fact” rebuts the claims that fundamentalist groups have authority from John Taylor to practice polygamy.
The Smoot hearings say 4% of the church was practicing plural marriage, others claim 20 or 30%.
Brigham Young never lived in an area where they had communal property. He owned his own home, etc.
God reveals things to us based on the condition in which we find ourselves.
Polygamy worked back then, it would not work in today’s society.
……..
Part 5 Scripture
The Ancient Paths – 5th Interview with Alma Allred, LDS Institute Instructor, on Scripture – YouTube
Scripture is canonized when it is presented before the members for vote of the Church.
The Book of Commandments was not necessarily canonized but the later version The Doctrine & Covenants is.
D&C 101 was before polygamy was practiced large scale.
Revelations of Joseph Smith had to be presented to the people before they were binding on the church.
When the church first started polygamy they were disingenuous about denying it in the same way that Abraham denied Sarah being his wife.
The original D&C 101 was removed because it was incompatible with D&C 132, the more expanded view that plural marriage is authorized in some occasions.
In 1852 D&C 132 was canonized.
The Doctrine and Covenants originally had the lectures on faith, that was the doctrine part. The lectures on faith were teachings, they were not canonized doctrines.
Several of the Joseph Smith lectures on faith were not written by Joseph Smith and were probably by Sydney Rigdon and perhaps Oliver Cowdry, and only one person can receive revelation for the church.
Part of the Doctrine and Covenants, namely the lectures on faith, were not canon. We also have footnotes in our scriptures, they are in the scriptures but they are not canon.
The lectures on faith were explanatory notes, not canon, same with chapter headings and footnotes.
Evangelicals are claiming that the Bible is the perfect word of God but they’re still very willing to quickly go to the Greek or Hebrew for additional and alternate meanings.
Church members don’t go around claiming the Bible is corrupt. They affirm that it is God’s word.
All additional scriptures also affirm the divinity of Christ.
We have canonized the KJV, not the JST (Joseph Smith Translation).
Note – except for the portions of the JST which are in the Pearl of Great Price.
Revelations weren’t always published correctly, some had to be revised.
David Whitmer misremembers things that had been documented elsewhere.
Some revelations and later publishing were combined into single sections, this is why some word counts of certain revelations are different today than historically.
Scriptures themselves don’t say that scriptures are perfect or won’t ever change, that’s just the Protestant paradigm of scripture.
A scripture about being broken with the rod of iron is recorded again in the New Testament but this time it says being ruled with a rod of iron; biblical scholars agree this was a quotation from the Greek Septuagint which was a mistranslation, yet the angel as recorded in the New Testament quoted the Greek Septuagint mistranslation, so to the angel it apparently didn’t matter that there was a word difference, so we see there is flexibility.
All Latter-day Saints are repeatedly encouraged to search all of the scriptures.
It is true that we cannot just say that our feelings dictate what we do, we must be grounded in the word of God.
We believe in an apostasy but we do not believe that means there were no believers.
Deuteronomy 4 is about not taking from or adding to the text, if we were to do a strict interpretation of that, we could not have any text after that. (So we can’t say that when this similar passage occurs in the Book of Revelation that such means there can be no more scripture beyond what is contained in our present day Holy Bible.)
The restoration of the ancient way is that we now again have a prophet and that prophet will reveal to us what we need based on our circumstances.
Part 6 Temples
https://youtu.be/WH_TehgqHWo
Temples are for ordinances but also for instruction.
Jesus said my house is a House of prayer.
On the temples it says The House of the Lord Holiness to the Lord. It’s our Holiness that we offer to Him, He is already holy.
In scripture we are told to be holy.
Many cathedrals are dedicated to various saints, all of our temples are dedicated to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We need the ordinances of the temple for exaltation, but the temple ordinances are only valid because of Jesus’s sacrifice.
Jesus brought to pass our salvation, but there is a path for us to follow to access it.
We must live by every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God.
Joseph Smith said the purpose of gathering the saints together is to build a temple.
Temples are where we receive instructions from God.
Book of Mormon is mostly before Christ and we don’t see some of these later temple development things in the Book of Mormon for that reason. Nephi builds a temple after the manner of Solomon you’re not going to see baptism for the dead etc. in it.
We don’t see the church as the temple, we see the temple as the temple. But you can’t have the temple without the church.
The loss of the church in 70 AD is why they lost the temple.
Even though the people had made the temple a den of thieves the Savior still went to teach in the temple and the apostles still went to teach there.
The Jews had separate temples from synagogues.
The Book of Mormon itself says that there will be additional books that will come forth to restore lost things, etc.
1842 the Nauvoo period, this is when Joseph Smith openly preached eternal marriage.
The Kirtland Temple was a preliminary temple much like Solomon’s Temple, not used for all the things we use temples today. It was a place of instruction and revelation.
The temple is a place of revelation; Gabriel was sent to Zacharias in the temple. Now in this dispensation Gabriel AKA Elias also came to the temple along with other angelic messengers.
Noah was an Elias, a forerunner
Peter said by these promises we will become partakers of the divine nature. In other words, we will be like God is.
We are not finite beings now, and when we are resurrected we will be infinite beings.
A manifestation of the holiness of Christ is that he is willing to share with us his divinity, his thrones, his crowns his rulership, his willingness to give us everything he has. This giving of Christ does exalt Christ.
Paul says have the same mind of Christ, that to be equal with God is Not robbery.
Paul’s instruction on Mars Hill says we are all the offspring of God, not just the believers. Jesus calls some people children of the devil, and that’s because of the choices they make.
Just because we don’t read about New Testament temples doesn’t mean it wasn’t a thing; we don’t have much record of Jesus’s teachings after the resurrection even though there was a 40-day ministry of Jesus after the resurrection.
We do have baptism for the dead mentioned in the New Testament several times. It would have likely been done in a special place like the temple.
1839 early in the Nauvoo period is when baptism for the dead was taught.
Joseph was given instructions on what to give in the endowment, and had the ability to adapt it. Brigham also said it is adaptable.
It’s ok that all the ordinances weren’t always available historically, that’s why we do work for the dead.
A man whose wife dies can be sealed to another woman, and both are his brides in heaven.
A woman whose husband dies, if she remarry, that marriage is not sealed in a temple, so she is with her first husband in heaven. (This is taught in scripture and is official Church doctrine.)
Part 7 on Hell
https://youtu.be/EG3eNo3dl60
The idea that tons of people are going to a never-ending intense millions of years forever hell of extreme anguish is not consistent with the love of God or with scripture.
Alma and his friends in the Book of Mormon feared that people would experience the flames of hell, not necessarily damnation of hell.
In the New Testament Hades is mistranslated as hell, it’s really just the unseen world, the place of the dead.
In the New Testament judgment is mistranslated as damnation.
Those who refuse baptism in the true church cannot be righteous and are in their sins; they will go to the spirit world which is hell. But it’s not torture. It’s the bondage of sin. For sons of perdition, hell is permanent.
Christ said at some point everyone shall be forgiven, and every knee bow and tongue confess. (2 Ne. 9: Christ saves from death and hell.)
‘Targorus’ in the Jewish perspective is the spirit prison, the waiting for judgement in awful anticipation.
The rich man and Lazarus – that man quickly revised his thinking after he was dead in the spirit world, he had a new perspective, and many will.
The rich man was not in hell, he was Hades, and the flames are figurative; it is a situation he set up by the way he lived.
This is long before the resurrection.
Those who die in their sins do experience torment.
Jesus says better to pluck out your eye then to enter with two eyes into Gahanna.
It’s not hellfire, it’s the fires of Gahanna.
There was fire there to help control the smell – this is where the most violent criminals went without burial.
See Frederick Ferrar book on the Life of Christ.
The forever suffering in the Bible, the word means eons, it does not mean forever.
The Bible says some people will be beaten with a few stripes, some with many, but it does not say people will be beaten with stripes for all eternity.
Ferrar explains that there is a hell but it does not last forever.
There is a punishment.
Alma in the Book of Mormon suffered three days; he described his suffering as eternal torment. (Eternal is a degree, more than a time. This is made clear in the D&C, a mystery revealed.)
We preach to people not so much to keep them from going to hell, but to help them be happier. God’s ways are the ways of happiness and the purpose of life is happiness.
God has not predetermined that anyone is going to suffer forever. God is holy and loving.
Joseph Smith said God is both more gracious than we understand, and more serious about punishing sin then we understand.
The only way out of hell is through Jesus Christ.
We do work in the temples because we expect that people who were not Mormons will be saved and some exalted.
In the telestial Kingdom there will be no sin or death, that is not the kingdom in which we live. It is an oversimplification to claim that we are living in a telestial Kingdom.
Those who are thrust down to hell will ultimately be resurrected and brought up into a telestial kingdom.
Joseph Smith said the glory that will be in the telestial Kingdom will surpass anything we can imagine.
Those who have been cast down will be brought back up. The telestial kingdom is a kingdom of heaven, not hell.
Mormons do not go around telling people who are not Mormons that they will go to hell.
First Nephi chapter 17 etc. in The Book of Mormon sets the way for other books to come forward, it doesn’t claim to be the end all be all only book, but it does contain the gospel – that Jesus lived a perfect life and died for our sins.
Joseph Smith said the fundamental of our religion is the testimony of the prophets of Jesus Christ.
We are led by prophets and are less likely to be impacted by popular Christian myths.
The New Testament speaks of terror of God. We do see that God sent the flood. God destroys civilizations that are wicked, etc.
When one of the disciples asked Jesus if there would be a few that would be saved, Jesus avoided the question and said ‘enter in at the gate.’
The lake of fire is figurative, but hell is a real torment, with dreadful looking forward to the judgment.
It’s been said that the Latter-day Saints don’t fear God. Perhaps we do not fear God because we feel our sins have been forgiven.
Part 8 – Hell part 2
https://youtu.be/bHOPMSvopSw
Alma does not subscribe to the view that there are only a handful of sons of perdition.
Prophets have never given a number.
The scriptures spend a lot of time talking about sons of perdition so it’s probably not just a tiny number. These are people who could have been exalted, and there may be less sons of perdition than many Christians think.
Note – God had to make a place for these people, there must be a sizable group.
We’re not limited by the Bible as our full source of doctrine.
The devil and his angels get torment forever and ever; that would mean basically the sons of perdition and ongoing punishment.
Of necessity God wants to warn us of the danger of sin.
The Book of Mormon points out that sinners aren’t going to get away with just a couple stripes.
Hell is an actual place and people will suffer there for ages upon ages.
Greek term, eons and eons (forever and ever in Greek is eons and eons).
That ‘forever’ (eon) word is also used for eternal God, but they didn’t have a word for eternity.
The atonement overcomes death for all, thus it is infinite. But it doesn’t save all from spiritual death, that is finite, it doesn’t apply to all.
Every knee will bow. At some point, hearts will soften.
In the Book of Mormon, Alma says hell is AS a lake of fire and brimstone, he makes it metaphorical.
Lazarus and the rich man is a parable.
Death by the flood, death of the body, it isn’t nearly as terrifying as the idea of a God who tortures people in hell.
Sons of perdition make a conscious choice to act against the light of God, willingly. Many sinners in this life are deceived and sin due to deception, which is not as bad.
Acts 17 shows we are actually the children of God, this is told to an audience who isn’t religious. Follow Christ and become adopted to Christ. Follow the devil and be adopted to the devil.
Adoption doesn’t cancel out the fact that we are literally children of God. Yes mankind are fallen, that’s the nature of this world, but this doesn’t mean we aren’t literally children of God.
God can execute judgement, he can destroy. But forever torture isn’t his way. It’s meting justice, then it’s done.
We can’t prove that heaven never ends by the Bible. With LDS revelation we can, that hell ends, heaven doesn’t.
Presbyterians believe in predestination, that those who don’t hear the gospel were predestined to suffer in hell. LDS see judgment based on what you knew, and do work for the dead who didn’t have the opportunity in life for Christian baptism, etc.
Christ saved all. Sons of Perdition are saved by Christ, but they chose to not be saved.
Part 9 on Prophecy, Prophets, & Adam God
Presbyterians think the millennium of Satan bound is already started (mentioned in one of the earlier lectures)
The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Would to God that all were prophets said Moses.
The senior apostle is the president of the church.
Sampson probably did not qualify as a prophet.
Abraham was a prophet, he was a friend of God but he did not, from the record we have, necessarily declare the message of the covenant.
Note – I’m sure Abraham did declare the covenant, but Alma here is making a point about what a prophet is, and shows there are larger parameters than many think.
The role of the prophet is to give counsel and guidance to the church.
The role of apostles is to keep us from veering away into false doctrine.
The president of the church is the one person who controls the performance of ordinances.
Something can become canonized into scripture; if the president of the church thinks it needs to be canonized he will present it to the church for vote. In the past about 100 years there’s only been a few things added to the canon, namely the revelation on race and priesthood, sections 138, and 137 another revelation of Joseph Smith that had not previously been in the book.
Joseph Smith taught many things that were not canonized and Brigham Young was a president of the church for a long time but only canonized one thing.
Protestants are a lot like Jews in that they are not willing to consider things not in the book.
They are very much tied to specific books and do not let in others.
In a culture without a living oracle people tend to make their own interpretations of scripture.
The Jews at the time of Christ had very distorted views of the covenant; they would say to Jesus that Moses said such and such, and Jesus would say that was because of the hardness of your hearts, then Jesus would overrule it.
Note – I wonder in the future which things that we are currently doing and teaching in the church will be discontinued for a similar reason of those being because of the hardness of our hearts.
In Genesis it says circumcision is an everlasting covenant but the apostles Peter and Paul had the right to meet in council and decide whether or not that would be required for converts to the church at that time which they decided it would not be and they were in their right to make that decision.
Paul wrote that by faith they became the children of Abraham, they weren’t required to do certain things of the law like circumcision.
See President Benson 14 fundamentals of prophets.
In General Conference talks the scriptures that they reference are primarily from the New Testament.
Church leaders are not necessarily telling us what to do, they are telling us general guidelines like keep the commandments.
We know the leaders of the church are true prophets, they have been legitimately and consistently ordained and recognized by the people of the church.
One key to tell a true from a false prophet given in the New Testament is to look at their fruit to see if it is good fruit to know if it is a good tree. The fruit of Joseph Smith is the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, so look at those and compare them with what you already know in the Bible.
Concerning D&C 84 the prophecy of building a temple in Independence: The Revelation is given at Kirtland Ohio and it says the gathering begins at this place, that means Ohio. Which Temple shall be reared in this generation, that’s referring to the Kirtland Temple. There was only a commandment for the saints to gather at Ohio at that time. The scripture says a temple will be built in that generation, not necessarily the Independence Temple. The 1836 Kirtland Temple fulfilled prophecy, but there will also be an Independence temple in the future.
Another interpretation of D&C 84 is that God provides provisions for fulfilment of prophecy, which provisions may have been contingent on the obedience of the people.
Like Jonah’s prophecy.
In D&C 105 we read that the saints were not righteous and some promises, buildings of Zion, were delayed.
Joseph prophesied of destruction of the wicked and the Lord’s return on that generation. But like the people who heard Jonah’s message, action of the people can delay that.
Note – we also know a righteous group needs to build Zion before the Lord returns, and they didn’t get that done, so the other couldn’t come yet.
Parly Pratt wasn’t inspired when he said 5 years from now all the wicked will be destroyed.
People can be wrong.
Ancient apostles were also probably wrong sometimes, but not recorded.
The idea of a pre-tribulation rapture was invented in the 1800s.
The Lord said no one knows when the second coming of Christ will be.
God was once a man. He lived like Jesus.
God is the father of all spirits, this would include Jesus, us, Lucifer, everyone.
…….
On Adam God
JD 1:50 (Journal of Discourses) is Brigham’s Adam God sermon, it was never one that he published and sent out to the people as scripture. The JD was never published by the church, it was by the FLDS church who published it.
There are several sermons which Brigham did correct, and the uncorrected version is the one that got published.
Samuel Rodgers and Wilford Woodruff both recorded the sermon of Brigham Young differently which is found in JD 1:50.
The Seer is the only publication that’s been condemned by the first presidency and quorum of the 12 apostles. This is where we read of the dispute between Brigham and Orson Pratt. The main dispute between them was that Orson thought Adam was made out of dirt and Brigham taught that Adam was made by natural birth.
Fundamentalists want to focus on certain things of Brigham Young and mainstream LDS want to look at other things Brigham Young taught, and there are things that neither of them want to look at, but to get a good understanding you have to look at the whole thing.
Brigham Young used the name Adam as a title, and that title can apply to more than one specific individual.
Just like how Paul called God Adam.
If I say Joseph Smith was born 1771, people think that’s crazy, but it’s actually true because we’re talking about Joseph Smith Sr. not Joseph Smith Jr.
Similarly the term Adam can apply to more than one individual.
There are Lords many and Gods many says the scripture.
If we are cleaned by Christ, whether or not we were a sinner at one point in our history is irrelevant. People want to ask the question of if God was once a man did he sin, the answer is it doesn’t matter because he would have been cleansed if he did.
Note – this is a great point. The plan of God centers in a savior interceding for a cohort of God’s children. All people involved in that plan have the opportunity to advance to become like God Himself. Surely there are ruling Gods stretching back forever, and there will be more stretching forever into the future. The work of God never ends.
Part 10, Nature of God
https://youtu.be/I3BpsD8ozsI
Jehovah is a son of the highest God.
Jews of the diaspora were not living the faith of the Patriarchs. It was understood in the old days of the patriarchs that there is more than one God.
When the scripture says there is no other God it means none of the idols are God and that God is not made like an idol is made.
The neighbors of the Israelites had a God for everything they would pray to the god of fish if they’re fishing, pray to the god of the hunt if they were hunting, and so the scripture of the Israelites said there’s one God you pray to, one God for everything.
God says I will send my angel before you and you will reverence him and recognize him as God.
See book The Great Angel: a study of Israel’s Second God by Margaret barker
Jehovah and El were two different gods and Jews tried to combine that into one.
Jesus quotes Psalm 82 to show that there are plural gods.
You cannot claim that the Bible says there’s only one God.
God became a God by obedience to eternal law.
Note – we see it is rule of law in the universe, not rule of a person; we see that God rules by law.
The Bible says God created out of the dust of the ground, it does not say he created out of nothing.
Scripture says Jesus was exalted to the right hand of his father – this implies that there is time and space with God, that God actually has a right hand for Jesus to be exalted at.
Josiah restricts temples to mount Moriah, but Jeremiah the prophet of the time never says anything about it; before that there were other temples, and that was good. The reforms implemented by Josiah were not based in the teachings of God or the prophets. Josiah had priests executed who weren’t sacrificing where he wanted them to.
Margaret Barker and her writings show these Josiah reforms were not of God.
Some say the Book of Mormon people could not make a temple because you had to be at mount Moriah for a temple, but there were groups of Jews who were not conforming to the edicts of Josiah the king to limit holy things like that.
Paul sided passages that were no longer in the Jewish texts – the Jews took several things out of Deuteronomy 32 etc.
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint show that some manipulation was being done.
There are Jews who took out passages from the Bible to try and stop Christianity so it’s obvious that there could have been people earlier who took other stuff out of the Bible to accommodate their own agendas.
Why has God not told the prophet to bring back the parts of scripture that people have taken out? Because it does not need to be done. We do not believe in infallible scripture.
The problem with the council of Nicaea is that revelation had ceased; a group of people had to get together to decide what was true and to get other people to follow that same belief.
The council of Nicaea today would be like the president of the United States calling together the council of churches to try and get doctrine that everyone can agree on.
The Presbyterian claims that religion should be by the book and the LDS claim that it should be by (ongoing) revelation.
Note – The Part 11 DVD was stolen before it could be released to the public. This is what I learned upon inquiry.
Part 12 on Adam God
https://youtu.be/eSJIshDivfU
Note – when Brigham says Adam went to Eden and brought Eve one of his wives and helped make the world, he’s obviously not talking about God the Father because God the Father was the principal creator, not just a helper in the creation.
Mark E Peterson in his book “Adam Who is He” denounces Adam God doctrine as unscriptural.
You have to read all of Brigham’s teachings, not just the favorites of the fundamentalists or the favorites of the LDS.
Brigham was either confused, misquoted, misunderstood, or talking about Adam as a title rather than a person.
Brigham Young would bring up Adam teachings when Orson Pratt was in town because Orson Pratt had the view that Adam was made out of clay and Brigham had the view that Adam was born.
Brigham had a long time to explain himself and he never did.
George D Watt notes of JD 1:50, of the same, Woodruff took a paragraph more of notes, and those resolve some of the issues about Adam.
In the Wilford woodruff Journal we do see that he perceives that Brigham is in fact teaching that Adam is God the father of spirits.
During Brigham’s 33 year administration this topic is addressed only very rarely.
Brigham said it doesn’t matter whether we are to consider Adam or God or his father or his father, for in either case we are of one family, one species, and Jesus Christ is also our species.
So we see that Brigham is saying it is inconsequential who is who, we are all children of God.
Note – It seems likely Brigham’s view was that Jehovah in the creation wasn’t Jesus (at least some have suggested this), but that the 3 creation figures were each the son of the next; though the view of the Church today is that Jesus is Jehovah of the creation, and the 3 creation figures are not viewed as a line of fathers and sons, but as The Father & 2 of His sons (Jesus and Adam). Of course the term Jehovah is used today in the Church to mean Jesus, but it wasn’t always so, we have Joseph Smith praying to Jehovah as a title for God the Father, etc. Alma points out that today the church has, for convenience, designated the name “Jehovah” to mean Jesus, but the Church recognizes this is not essential. The clear message of the Church today is that Jesus was very involved in the creation, and is a central figure of the temple endowment. Perhaps a misunderstanding of Jesus not being an endowment figure (not being Jehovah) is what lead to speculation of Jesus being the next generation after Adam, which makes Adam the father of Jesus. I would say our understanding of these things in the Church has progressed, if the assumptions of Brigham’s view here presented are correct.
Joseph Smith taught that Adam is the Ancient of Days and Protestant Christianity sees the Ancient of Days as God the father, but Mormonism does not.
Protestants read about the Ancient of Days and Jesus coming to receive a crown from the Ancient of Days.
At the council in the last days (Adam-Ondi-Ahman), Adam and the prophets and Jesus will be there and Jesus will be honored, but Jesus will also honor Adam as the father of the human race, the Ancient of Days.
Note – My understanding is that Adam is a leading steward of this world, and that Jesus is leader over many earths. This doesn’t mean Adam is the God of this world. The Book of Mormon message is that Jesus Christ is the God of this world.
If you had Brigham Young, Bruce McConkie, Spencer Kimball & Mark Peterson all in the same room, they would agree together about Adam and God.
Brigham said some say that we are the children of Adam and Eve so we are, and they are the children of heavenly father.
Note – this clearly shows Brigham saw Adam as a son of God, not as God. Any allusions to Adam as God should be understood as a leading priesthood figure overseeing our progress on earth. Not as father of our spirits, but as an under-shepherd, a priest for God and God’s children here, someone to certainly be held in high esteem.
Brigham differentiates between Elohim and Michael and we know Brigham calls Michael Adam so clearly he doesn’t think that Adam is Elohim.
Church doctrine is not made by random statements. It is by the first presidency presenting to the members of the Church something to be included into the canon.
Brigham had the opportunity to canonize things about Adam but never did; whereas he did canonize things into the doctrine and covenants, 24 sections, including one he wrote himself.
Alma’s friend made a comprehensive collection of the discourses of Brigham and had access to the Church vault to do that and saw there were several instances where Brigham had made corrections of his sermons but the uncorrected version is the one that got published and shared.
The lecture at the veil record that we have skips four lines before the key parts about Adam.
L John Nuttall (source for the version of the ‘lecture at the veil’ we have today) wrote Brigham’s words but was not Brigham’s official secretary.
Adam God is not doctrine. Doctrine is found in our canon of scriptures.
Note – this is a major issue for Adam God advocates. Our scripture canon in many places refutes Adam God teachings, and advocates of Adam God have to stretch and say that we shouldn’t take the scripture at face value for what they say. For many, this old theory dies hard. But we must have a basis for establishing truth, and foundational scriptures are a big part of that. Prophets can add to scripture, expound on scripture, but what they can’t do is directly contradict scripture. For example, we have many scriptures saying that 1. Adam was a fallen man who was saved by Christ. 2. Adam lived as a mortal, grew old, and died (if Adam was God, he would be resurrected and unable to die, but “surely”, after eating the fruit, he did die.) There are other categories of scripture as well which further illustrate that the popular teachings on Adam God advocated by fundamentalist groups cannot square with revealed truths contained in the holy scriptures. Joseph Brigham and the all the prophets have warned against embracing teachings which go against scripture.
Adam God was not called a theory in Brigham’s day, but it was also not called the doctrine.
Brigham did have access to the book of Moses which says that Adam is a son of God.
Joseph Smith said that for a prophet not everything he says is inspired or the word of God.
We have procedures in place to determine what doctrine is, this is why we have the canon to prevent us from being led about by every wind of doctrine.
Several prophets have taught that no matter what a prophet says, it has to square with scripture or it is no good.
Brigham would say “I reckon” a lot. Prophets don’t always speak as prophets.
Prophets can give their own opinion or teach something wrong and still be prophets of the Lord. Moses was denied going into the land of promise because he did something wrong. Peter set a bad example and Paul had to challenge him in the New Testament which was an error in judgement. John sent disciples to find out if Jesus is the Christ which was an error of judgement (unless that was just for John’s followers not for John who already knew).
Note – also Jonah is surprised at the repenting of Ninevah.
Alma doesn’t believe that Brigham was mistaken. Look at all of his statements, they can be reconciled that Adam who fell is not God the Father. When Brigham spoke of father Adam meant the father of Adam. From the Bible we can conclude that God’s name is Adam. The whole family of heaven and earth is named Adam, named after God as the Bible says.
Note – It could be as simple as a father naming his firstborn after himself, as is common.
What of the Deuteronomy verse saying if a prophet says something and it doesn’t come to pass he is a false prophet, and Joseph Smith speaking something that didn’t happen?
Isaiah told Hezekiah he was going to die. Jona told Ninevah they were going to be destroyed. Jeremiah told Jehoiakin(?) he would have no children to sit on the throne of Israel. All these statements made in the name of the Lord did not come to pass. God qualifies in the book of Jeremiah that what prophets say is contingent on how the people respond to it.
Note: people who argue this ‘didn’t come to pass’ argument disregard the plethora of prophecies of Joseph Smith which did come to pass. There’s entire volumes on it.
Note: the prophecy of Joseph Smith about the Lord’s return happening earlier COULD have happened if the righteous were righteous enough, and the wicked wicked enough. It was a very likely condition, but it has been forestalled due primarily to the wickedness of the people, and the failure of the saints to build Zion in Holiness.
If the Lord tells a people he is going to build up a city, and the people don’t get on board, he won’t build it up.
Note – surely here Alma refers to the latter-day Zion which wasn’t built in Missouri due to the failure of the saints, as indicated in the D&C.
The pearl of great price talks about the gods forming the Earth, we have God the Father God the son and Adam participating in creating the Earth.
Joseph Smith said unequivocally that marriage was an institution of Heaven instituted in the garden of Eden. (Shows that Adam didn’t ‘bring one of his wives’ there as is said. Rather, Adam was married in Eden.)
When it comes to the quote that Adam came to this earth bringing one of his wives and that he was a resurrected being, there is no way that could be referring to the Adam who fell;
Adam could not have been married before he came into the garden of Eden.
Note – Alma would argue, and I would agree, that the ‘Adam’ spoken of in that particular is ‘Adam Sr.’, God the Father, not the Adam who fell in Eden.
The Book of Mormon tells us that a resurrected being cannot die and that if Adam took the fruit he would surely die.
And he did partake and he did die, so he was not a resurrected being, and therefore not God.
The poem of Eliza Snow celebrating Adam as the father of Jesus is not in church materials today.
Note – Adam was the maternal grandfather of Jesus, but it appears Eliza Snow was incorrectly teaching that Adam was the direct paternal father of Adam.
The archangel Michael is not the father of our spirits.
The Savior taught in parables specifically so that people would not understand, and we see Brigham doing the same.
Orson Pratt’s writings in The Seer were condemned by the first presidency and quorum of the 12 and Orson agreed he was wrong in that.
The lecture at the veil may have only been at the St George temple.
Brigham says Eve’s being from one of Adam’s ribs means symbolically that she was procreated from the side of her father, NOT her husband but her father, this is evidence of Brigham using the term Adam as father.
We cannot say that God the Father and Mary the mother of Jesus working together to create Jesus is incestuous because we are all brothers and sisters in spirit and we would not think that it typical marriage between two spirit siblings (which we all are) as incestuous.
The Adam who fell in Eden was a god before he came to Earth similarly to how the Holy Ghost is a God who has not yet come to Earth and how Jesus was a god before he came to Earth. Adam who fell in Eden did help create the earth.
Note – for more of Alma Allred’s teachings about the Adam God controversy, see my booklet on the subject. Alma has lots of terrific insights for this topic.
Part 13 blood atonement
https://youtu.be/H8ZDlRMQNyw
Bruce McConkie in Mormon doctrine says claims of blood atonement that dissenters were killed to help atone for their sins are false, that there are no instances of blood atonement in this dispensation.
The shed blood of an apostate or a murderer is not efficacious to remediate their sins.
People chose firing squad over hanging as it’s quicker.
Capital punishment for murder is a just punishment for that crime.
When Brigham spoke of executing apostates he was referring to people who are seducing young women, etc.
Brigham lamented there was not a union of church and state so they could not practice blood atonement.
Brigham got ideas about blood atonement from the Bible which says “he who sheds blood his blood should be shed” in the Book of Genesis, but surely Brigham would agree that someone who is a murderer who strangles someone has still shed blood (despite no actually blood coming out) and is worthy of his blood being shed.
There is no evidence that blood atonement was ever practiced in the church, only false reports.
The church always denied the oaths of vengeance in the temple to avenge Joseph Smith, and Wilford Woodruff denied that. Woodruff said it was a vague quotation from The Book of Revelation that they prayed that the blood of the martyrs would be avenged.
Ervil LeBaron, his groups were the only ones that actually thought it was okay to murder ‘sinners’.
There are people who break off from the LDS Church who adopt destructive erroneous doctrines which were never part of Mormonism.
Capital punishment doesn’t mean blood atonement.
The LDS church teaches that the only blood atonement is that of Jesus Christ.
Genesis says those who shed man’s blood their blood should be shed by man, and that commandment is still in force, but it does not equate to blood atonement.
Brigham Young had a group of people called ‘marauders’ keep the enemies of the saints away from the valley for a year, he said do anything you can to keep them out, burn their crops, scatter their cattle, just don’t kill anyone. This was a military operation and they confiscated much ammunition etc. and all of this without killing a single person.
People talked about blood atonement but it never actually took place.
People often spoke in hyperbole when they called for the killing of someone.
It was claimed that the Danites killed apostates but they did not.
The adopted son of Brigham Young who was a murderer wasn’t someone raised by Brigham, Brigham spiritually adopted many people. And the Book of the memoirs of this murderer didn’t come out until after his death. There are many questionable things about this source.
Brigham Young referencing putting a javelin through adulterers is directly out of the Bible.
The Journal of Discourses was never published by the Church, we don’t know how accurate it is.
There are certainly some problems that have been verified.
1856 and 7 in the Mormon Reformation, this is the only time that we hear of blood atonement teachings.
Anytime something was said which goes beyond scripture is not our doctrine.
The mountain Meadows massacre was an account of war. There was a real threat that am army was coming to kill them, and a group who was going to join that army and kill them.
Certainly the church did not approve of it but these were people concerned about war, acts of war.
Brigham insisted that the amnesty for the Utah War not cover the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Brigham was not hiding information about mountain Meadows, he was reporting to the government information that was told to him from John D Lee that the Indians were the cause of it, which was not true.
Brigham insisted that John D Lee be brought to trial.
One woman called in to the show claiming that there was instruction in the temple celestial room about blood atonement for revealing the secret tokens, but Alma catches this lie as there is never instruction given in the celestial room of temples!
Whether or not someone is executed has no bearing on the status of the remission of their sins.
The book of Hebrews says for some people there is no remission of sin.
